


Coal

by wheel_pen



Series: Loose Gems [12]
Category: Original Work, Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace
Genre: M/M, Slavery, Unhealthy Relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-06
Updated: 2015-05-06
Packaged: 2018-03-29 09:12:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,720
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3890743
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wheel_pen/pseuds/wheel_pen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A slave is injured protecting his master, but gets the reward he desires.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Coal

**Author's Note:**

> The bad words are censored; that’s just how I do things.   
> Inherent in slavery and other forms of subjugation are dubious consent, unhealthy relationships, and violence.  
> I hope you enjoy this original work, which was inspired by many different stories.
> 
> Visual reference:  
> Coal--Ewan McGregor  
> Bahadir--Liam Neeson

When I woke up, I didn't know where I was. This was usually a bad sign. I was tucked into a soft, warm bed near a blazing fire, in a bedroom expensively decorated with thick velvets and heavy wood. Not the worst place to wake up, certainly, but I still didn't recognize it.

I tried moving around a bit and immediately regretted it when the once-dormant pain returned swiftly. My right leg was the worst, with sharp, shooting pains radiating out from the wound in my thigh and turning into a dull but persistent ache by the time they got to my foot. On the bright side, it made my usual complement of scrapes and bruises fade in comparison.

Gritting my teeth I shoved back the pile of blankets covering me and forced myself into a sitting position. I was wearing only loose black sleeping pants, and there was a matching robe tossed over the foot of the bed that I grabbed; but a glance around the room showed me nothing else useful, like boots or a weapon.

I swung my legs over the side of the bed and attempted to stand on the plush carpeting. My head started to swim so violently I thought I was going to be sick, however, so I gripped the fine linen sheets tightly and waited for the room to stop spinning. When I finally tried again, I encountered a new problem: my injured leg couldn't support any weight without sending a burning pain through my body. I couldn't just lie there in bed and wait for my captors to come to me, however nicely they furnished my cell; I had to be _doing_ something and that involved walking.

Or at least hobbling, as I could only cross the few feet to the door by hanging on to something else, like furniture or the wall. When I finally made it to the entrance, I had to stop and rest against it for a few moments, panting from my exertions. All this work, yet I fully expected the door to be locked--and it wasn't.

I was not in any shape to take evasive maneuvers, but I still prepared as best I could before I gently turned the knob and cracked the door open. I paused, waiting for a reaction, but there was none and I carefully opened the door a little farther, enough to stick my head out. I looked up and down the ornate hallway, but there were no guards visible. Strange indeed. Perhaps they didn't consider me much of a threat.

Perhaps they were right, I decided as I slowly made my way down the hall. To call my motion "limping" was to give it more credit that it deserved. It was more like crawling upright. I paused before reaching the intersection of another hall, saving up the strength to make it across quickly in case anyone should travel it. With a burst of determination I pushed away from the wall and began to hobble towards the other side.

When I was about halfway across I heard the jangle of a doorknob down the hall and fought back a trickle of panic. I could make it safely to the other side, if I could just make myself move a little faster-- The door opened and I willed myself to run, even though my leg felt like it was on fire, but apparently my will wasn't very strong. The most I managed was a one-step stumble into the opposing wall. I had reached my goal, but I wasn't actually out of sight. Perhaps the person wouldn't turn in my direction--

"Coal!" I jerked my aching head up at the sound of a familiar voice, my master's voice. It was he who was freely exiting the door down the hallway.

"Master?" I responded with confusion. Suddenly I was exhausted, well aware of the sweat coating my skin and my shortness of breath.

He reached me at a jog, his long silver-brown hair flying behind him like a lion's mane. He had barely stopped before me when a wave of dizziness nearly knocked me off my feet. Bahadir threw my arm around his shoulders and bent to pick me up, but I batted his hand away. "I can walk," I assured him stubbornly. I wasn't going to be carried like a child. Again.

He arched an eyebrow at me skeptically but said nothing about it, merely supporting as much of my weight as I would allow. Together we started to move--back the way I had just come, which seemed an ignobly short distance.

"You shouldn't be out of bed," he told me shortly. "You need to rest."

"Where are we, Master?" I asked, trying to focus on anything other than the pain in my leg.

"We're safe," he assured me in a more soothing tone. Normally I might have resented it as patronizing, but at the moment I clung to it--and him--with gratitude. "This mansion belongs to a friend."

"Oh," I replied dully. I remembered nothing about how we reached this place. Bahadir pushed open the door of my room and pulled me across the threshold. I was trying to walk, I really was, but my strength was gone. He kicked the door shut easily and hauled me back to the bed. So much for my grand escape attempt.

As soon as he sat me down on the mattress and slid away, I crumbled to the blankets as if boneless. My head was spinning so much I could feel the room move even with my eyes closed. I moaned quietly, missing my master's presence, his strength, and quickly chastised myself. Fortunately he assumed it was all due to my injuries.

"You hit your head," he told me, returning with a cup of water for me to spill everywhere. "The doctor said you might have dizzy spells for a while."

Bahadir gently pulled me back to a sitting position—leaning against his chest, that is—and worked the black robe off. I tried to think of what else was important to ask, but my mind was fuzzy and the fabric of his vest was so soft against my face. My sweat-slicked skin was icy when exposed to the air, and I shivered. For a moment he rubbed my back and arms, but just when I was getting warmer he stopped and maneuvered me back onto the pillows. He bent to lift my legs under the covers and a bolt of pain shot through my thigh, curling my toes. I hissed and arched my back, tears forming in the corners of my eyes.

“Stupid, stupid boy,” Bahadir snarled, so harshly that I glanced up at him. He was glaring down at me with his fierce steel-grey eyes, hands on his hips.

“I-I’m sorry, Master,” I began quickly, “but I didn’t know where I was—“

“Not that,” he snapped, yanking the covers back over me. “Getting injured in the first place. Do you remember?”

I did. It was coming back. I sat up on my elbows. “I had to protect you, Master.”

He turned away, draping the robe back over the foot of the bed. “I don’t need you to protect me,” he replied angrily. “I need you to do what you are told.”

I swallowed hard, fighting to keep my voice steady. Bahadir’s anger was frightening, but his disappointment was worse. “But Master, if I did what I was told _you_ would have been shot.”

“I would not.”

He sounded so certain, but I knew differently. “But Master, you didn’t see him—“

“I saw him.”

“But not in time, Master—“

“Stop whining.”

His voice was ice cold, but I couldn’t read his expression because he still had his back to me. I flopped back down, biting my lip. I wished desperately that I could roll over on my side, curl up away from him so he couldn’t see the way my chin trembled. I tried to review the skirmish in my mind—had I acted rashly? Had I actually _endangered_ my master more than protected him by becoming needlessly injured?

“You would have been shot, Master,” I repeated stubbornly, but I was afraid my tone sounded too petulant.

At my contradiction he whirled around to face me, but his gaze was not as severe as I had expected. “Don’t you dare talk back to me, boy,” he ordered, his tone less harsh. I felt like I was winning.

“You didn’t see him. You probably _never_ saw him.”

“If you hadn’t just gotten shot, boy,” Bahadir began slowly, “I would turn you over my knee and beat that impudence out of you.”

I smiled a little, imagining such a scenario, then immediately tried to wipe the expression off my face. My master looked so serious as he walked back to the bedside that I began to frown instead, just watching him. “You lost so much blood,” he told me solemnly, looking more _through_ me than _at_ me. “At least it seemed like you did. You left bloody footprints all the way up here because you wouldn’t let me carry you. You threw a fit every time I tried. Do you remember?”

I shook my head. It sounded like me, though. “I’m sorry, Master.”

He sat down on the edge of the bed, the mattresses dipping under his weight. “I guess you didn’t really hit your head,” he admitted, brushing some damp strands of hair off my forehead. My skin tingled everywhere his fingers brushed. “The doctor was trying to help you, cut those d—n leather pants off you—“

“Oh, not _another_ pair, Master!” I joked. I knew he liked the way I looked in them, I could tell by how much he complained.

Bahadir smiled a little bit, let his fingers ruffle through the rest of my hair. I hardly dared breathe, afraid I would somehow shatter this mood of his. “You kept fighting—everyone was holding you down and you kept trying to get up. You kept telling me to get down, to keep moving. You wouldn’t believe me when I said I was fine.”

I couldn’t meet his gaze—that sounded a little _too_ much like me, too much like my recurring nightmare of my master being injured because of me. I hadn’t meant to share that one with everyone.

He sighed. “And then Onan grabbed a trencher or something and cracked it over your head.” The corner of his mouth quirked up as he looked at me. “I’m afraid I didn’t handle that very well. But you _were_ much quieter afterwards.”

“I’m sorry to trouble you, Master,” I told him sincerely. With an injury like this, I would be laid up for weeks. I just hoped he didn’t decide to go on without me. I caught his eye and added, “But I’d rather it be me here than you.”

This time it was Bahadir who broke eye contact, suddenly finding a cut above my eye fascinating. “That’s just foolishness,” he replied gruffly.

“It would hurt more,” I insisted, wincing and pulling away when he hit a tender spot on my forehead, “if that’s possible.”

“You’re delirious,” he concluded shortly. Bahadir grabbed my wrists and held them together in one of his large, strong hands, now intent on examining the cut further.

“Do you think I’m going to attack you, Master?” I asked lightly, pulling on my hands a little bit. Admittedly in the past he had sometimes needed to restrain me that way, but I certainly wasn’t going anywhere at the moment.

He paused and noticed what he had done, then smiled, just a little bit, and released me. “I guess not,” he decided, dropping one hand on the mattress beside me. The other he let trail away from the cut and down the side of my face, around my ear, along my jaw. I sighed happily and tilted my face up towards his touch—he was in a strange, affectionate mood tonight, and I wanted to encourage it without scaring him off. It was very difficult to keep from just grabbing him, however, since my skin was burning with urgency in the wake of his fingertips.

“Coal,” he said with a frown, brushing his thumb against my lower lip. I gazed up into his piercing grey eyes but said nothing, for fear of dislodging him. “I really thought you were going to die.”

I don’t know what he expected me to say. I’d already apologized three times. So I tried the truth. “I can’t promise I won’t do it again, Master.”

A spark of anger flared in his eyes and he suddenly gripped my chin a little harder than was really necessary. I felt a little bit nervous and my throat was dry. Bahadir leaned in closer, his long hair brushing my shoulders. I prepared myself for an order I would disobey, or a threat I would ignore, or even a glib remark I would smirk at. Instead he just stared me in the eye and whispered, “I know.” His lips lowered over mine until they paused, not quite touching—was he hesitating? I wasn’t having any of _that_ , not when I’d been waiting so long. I leaned up, bridging the gap between our lips until they were pressed together. For a moment that contact was enough, then I found myself wanting more, like a desert wanderer dying of thirst. I nudged his lips apart and slipped my tongue in, lifting my head from the pillow. My hands slid up his chest and over his shoulders and tangled in his hair, drawing him closer. If this was going to be the only kiss I ever got, I wanted to make it memorable.

After a moment of surprise Bahadir responded, pressing me back down onto the pillow with a ferocity I should have expected. I could hardly get a breath under his assault of lips, tongue, and teeth. His beard scratched. I did my best to keep up; for once the dizziness felt almost normal.

I wanted him closer, as close as possible; I slid my arms around his neck, drawing his body down on top of mine. The weight on my chest made the kiss seem so much more real, less the product of a fevered mind. Bahadir’s hands were constantly in motion, sliding over the bare skin of my ribs and chest, curling over my shoulder. Considering the situation I felt he was overdressed and began unbuttoning his vest, but he grabbed my hand and pulled away with a last tug on my lower lip.

“Master!” I exclaimed, half indignant, half almost upset. I could have kept kissing him for the rest of my life. Despite the stoic expression he tried to muster, I could see his hands itching to touch me and I smirked a little bit. “Master,” I purred, reaching back up to his face.

He caught that hand, too, and held them tight. I squirmed a little bit on the end of my tether and his jaw tightened. “You’re too injured to be tempting me this way,” he said sternly, and I groaned.

“I’m fine,” I protested instantly, although it sounded just as ridiculous to my ears as it did to Bahadir’s. He let me go and started to rise. I struggled to sit up and grab him, but I only ended up pulling something in my leg. In an instant I was flat on my back biting my lip to keep from howling in pain. When the moment passed I sheepishly opened one eye. Bahadir was glaring at me in exasperation.

“Maybe you’d like to go back to sleep now?” he suggested in a tone that wasn’t a suggestion.

“I think I’d like to go back to sleep now, Master, if that’s okay,” I replied, squirming back under the blankets.

Bahadir tucked them in around me tightly, practically pinning me in place. I decided he was the one who had done it earlier as well. “I’ll bring you something to eat later,” he promised, stroking my hair one last time.

I smiled and nodded sleepily, my eyes drooping shut. My little escape attempt had worn me out. “Yes, Master,” I mumbled. Even without him beside me, I knew I was going to have great dreams.


End file.
